Facilities

The ACEER Foundation supports its education and research programs in the Amazon with classrooms, field labs, canopy access systems, demonstration gardens, interpreted trails, and nature interpretation centers for researchers, students and others.

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Overview of ACEER-Los Amigos at CICRA.  The station sits on a 40 m terrace above the Madre de Dios and Los Amigos rivers.

ACEER – Los Amigos at CICRA
The ACEER Foundation, in partnership with the Amazon Conservation Association and with full funding from the National Geographic Society, is creating a new education and research center in the Peruvian Amazon rainforest. The site ACEER – Los Amigos at CICRA, is adjacent to the Los Amigos Conservation Concession, approximately 7 hours travel time upriver from Puerto Maldonado, Peru. The Los Amigos watershed is remote, pristine wilderness that acts as a biological corridor connecting Manu National Park and the Tambopata Reserved Zone. An existing research center, CICRA, created by ACA, lies at the very heart of the largest expanse of virgin rainforest in the world and will complement the new ACEER facility.

Plant and animal diversity is extremely high around Los Amigos. The area contains a great diversity of terrestrial and aquatic habitats, including palm swamps, bamboo, oxbow lakes, and various types of flooded and non-flooded forests. Wildlife is abundant, including endangered animals, such as giant otters, harpy eagles, spider monkeys and the big cats such as jaguars. The area contains 13 species of primates. For comparison, all of Costa Rica holds only 4 monkey species. Individual populations of species can be quite robust. Recent field studies have noted individual monkey troops exceeding 200 individuals and peccary groups with more than 1000 individuals.

Dining Hall. This facility is undergoing expansion. It’s dining capacity will be doubled to accommodate both students and resident researchers

The site for the new ACEER station is on a high terrace (30 m. +/-) above the Los Amigos River and associated with the CICRA research center; ACEER will have full access to CICRA, and their resident researchers, in support of educational programs. At the present time, there are 70 researchers at CICRA working on short and long-term funded projects through universities and organizations such as the World Wildlife Fund, the Moore Foundation, and Conservation International. The Los Amigos site also offers over 100 km of marked trails in support of the new center. The campus includes double rooms with individual showers/flush toilets, a dining facility, staff quarters, a field laboratory and classrooms. The site has full power and 24/7 wireless Internet access. Initial capacity will be for educational groups of about 20 students. ACA will provide the management and logistical services for the new center. The site will be operational June 1, 2006, with the first courses and workshops scheduled for shortly thereafter. Under this special partnership agreement with ACA, ACEER will be the sole agent for coordinating educational programs for the international community; ACA will use the site for local training programs, consistent with their own education and research missions.

“This new center will complement ACEER stations at Tambopata and our new cloud forest walkway in the Andes, also in partnership with ACA, and provide students and researchers an unparalleled opportunity to study rainforests and cloud forests,” notes ACEER President Dr. Roger Mustalish. In addition to dedicated workshops in the Andes and in the Amazon rainforest, ACEER and ACA will be creating intensive “mega-transect” workshops that will begin in the cloud forest at our joint Wayqechas Cloud Forest Walkway site and travel down the eastern slope of the Andes through seven ecosystems into the lowland rainforest at Los Amigos.

Medicinal Plant Garden at ACEER-Los Amigos
The newly established Medicinal Plant Garden at ACEER-Los Amigos is doing well. Most of the plants are native to the Madre de Dios region, with a few additional exotic examples from the region of Iquitos. Beds were created by Don Antonio Montero, and his son Gilmer, in June 2006. Maintenance is carried out by Remigio Yumbato.

See the Los Amigos Trail Network

Laboratory.  One third of this building will be a dedicated lab space for ACEER	This building will be screened in and equipped as a classroom and teaching lab.  It is adjacent to the lab building.	This is the main dormitory with 10 double rooms all with private baths, flush toilets, showers, and electricity.
A cabin like this, but 2-bedroom, will be faculty housing during workshops.  It has a private bath, electricity and a stunning panoramic view of the forest.	A simple canopy access system into the canopy of a large Brazil nut tree provides a scenic overlook of the forest.